It ended with fireworks, two championship belts, and the Larry O’Brien trophy in a wrestling ring. WWE‘s first Saturday Night’s Main Event at Madison Square Garden since 2007 closed on Saturday with Roman Reigns crowning Jalen Brunson the King of New York, and the whole building acknowledged it.
Regular readers watched this one build in real time. Danhausen uncursed the Knicks, WWE made him the poster boy for the MSG show, Reigns publicly invited Brunson on Twitter, and Karl-Anthony Towns confirmed at Fanatics Fest that Danhausen is “the man who got us the chip.” Saturday night paid all of it off at once.
Greatness Acknowledges Greatness
After a New York sports video package and a blimp reading “WWE congratulates the New York Knicks” lowered toward the ring, Brunson, wrist brace and all, walked out of the same MSG locker room he uses on game nights and made a full entrance alongside the World Heavyweight Champion. Per eWrestling’s full recap, Reigns told the crowd “this is where greatness acknowledges greatness,” called 53 years without a Knicks title way too long, and introduced the Finals MVP as the one Captain New York has.
Then he handed Brunson a custom Knicks-colored WWE title belt, told him he’d earned it, and asked Madison Square Garden to acknowledge them both. The “you deserve it” chant came free of charge.
Seth Rollins had other ideas, and he brought a familiar antagonist: Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, who handed Rollins a steel chair. Brunson, who first crossed paths with Haliburton on SmackDown back in June 2024, stepped between the chair and his champion and informed Rollins whose house he was standing in. Reigns handled the rest with a Superman Punch and a spear, and the show went off the air with the champ and the MVP posing over the fallen challenger.
Karl-Anthony Towns, Tag Team Wrestler
Earlier in the night, Danhausen finally settled things with The Judgment Day‘s JD McDonagh in a No Disqualification match, after a video package recast him as “the CurseFather” for refusing to curse Oba Femi. When McDonagh and Dominik Mysterio got the tables and started disrespecting a Knicks jersey, the Minihausens swarmed, Danhausen’s cloning machine went haywire, and out of it walked Karl-Anthony Towns.
The Knicks big man chokeslammed McDonagh, then chokeslammed Mysterio through a table, and Danhausen hit the Triple D for the win, per PWMania’s live coverage. Hours earlier, Danhausen had led an actual Uncursing Parade through Manhattan in the rain with R-Truth and umbrellas. The man is having the best summer in wrestling.
SummerSlam Stays One on One
The wrestling main event had stakes of its own. CM Punk and Cody Rhodes, best friends tonight and opponents at SummerSlam, beat Sami Zayn and Gunther in a match The Garden showered with “this is awesome” chants. When Gunther brought Punk’s title into it, SmackDown GM Nick Aldis pulled the referee out, decked Gunther, and Punk hit the GTS to seal it, keeping the Undisputed WWE Championship match at SummerSlam a pure one-on-one dream match, per Fightful.
Full Results: WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event, July 18, 2026
Here’s everything that went down at Madison Square Garden:
- Countdown Show: Trick Williams defeated Laredo Kid in a non-title match, winning with the Trick Shot.
- Countdown Show: Stephanie McMahon interviewed Oba Femi, who said “I live in his head” about his Hell in a Cell match with Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam.
- Fatal Influence (Fallon Henley and Lainey Reid) defeated Scream Mode (Paige and Brie Bella) to win the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship, with an assist from Jacy Jayne at ringside.
- Danhausen defeated JD McDonagh in a No Disqualification match after Karl-Anthony Towns chokeslammed Dominik Mysterio through a table.
- Lyra Valkyria defeated Bayley, trapping her in the Bulldog Choke until she passed out, then laid her out with the Night Wing on the ring steps afterward.
- CM Punk and Cody Rhodes defeated Gunther and Sami Zayn, keeping the Punk vs. Rhodes SummerSlam title match one on one.
- Roman Reigns crowned Jalen Brunson the King of New York with a custom title belt, then speared Seth Rollins after a run-in with Tyrese Haliburton to close the show.
